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Countdown Lowdown
Law school starts Monday with three days of orientation, and to get things going the Dean has dutifully posted a "welcome letter" (link may require password) to the GW website to stroke the egos of the school and its incoming students:
This year the Law School received close to 12,000 applications for our class of 500 students. One out of every seven people who applied to a law school in the U.S. applied to GW. From that, we have drawn an exceptional class, one of the very best in our history.
I guess we should feel pretty good about that, and I guess I do. But really, as usual around here, ambivalence reigns. I'm excited to get started and the pre-big-new-thing jitters have begun, but I'm also sad to leave the life of leisure I've enjoyed all summer. Another way to put that is my ass has gotten lazy and the start of school means I have to get off of it and doing something with my life. Ah well, all good things do come to an end, don't they?
Question for others familiar with law schools for whatever reason: Is it common for schools to withhold the orientation schedule until orientation begins? All GW has told us is that we should show up at 9 a.m. Monday and that orientation will last three days. That's great and everything, but it's not very helpful for people who have things like kids, jobs, or any other obligations at all. I'm a big lazy bum so I don't have much happening, but I was going to see the dentist next week and can't really make an appointment because I don't know what my schedule will be. Of course, I have no clue about my class schedule, either, so planning anything after Monday is basically impossible. The reason I wonder if this is common is that it sends a message that your life is over when law school starts, or at least that your time belongs to the law school and is no longer within your control. "All your time are belong to us," GW seems to be saying. Do all law schools take this kind of approach to their incoming classes?
Maybe I'm more sensitive to this because GW's computer policy strikes me as imperious, as well, so I fear I'm seeing a trend. I guess I'll find out soon enough....
Posted August 15, 2003 07:33 AM | law school
We got our class schedule and orientation schedule at the same time. Orientation takes up the whole day for us - I've had to arrange for someone to let my little monster out for a bathroom break on those days.
Our class schedule is not too bad - a two hour break in the middle of each day and only one class on friday morning.
Posted by: sue at August 15, 2003 08:10 AM
Oh, get used to it...the school probably will continue to schedule things throughout the year at the most inconvenient times for people with any sort of lives outside the classroom. All your time are belong to us indeed.
Posted by: Beanie at August 15, 2003 08:38 AM
We got our orientation schedule last week, including two assignments to complete by the second day of orientation, when we'll have our first Legal Writing class.
Posted by: elle at August 15, 2003 08:54 AM
We got our class schedules last week along with an orientation agenda from our section leader.
Posted by: Anonymous at August 15, 2003 10:53 AM
Temple gave us our class info but orientation is a one day mystery (especially the part where it is 830-4 for day people but only 3 hours at night)
Posted by: Shara at August 15, 2003 11:58 AM
Penn gave us a very detailed orientation schedule (social events, minute-by-minute account of the 2-day orientation, etc.) several weeks ago. Class schedules are distributed (near as I can tell) at orientation, though the block schedule is up. Since all 3 sections of 1Ls have class at the same time (even if those aren't the same classes), I at least know which hours I'm likely to be in class.
Posted by: Dylan at August 17, 2003 05:49 PM
"Orientation takes up the whole day for us..."
"Penn gave us a...minute-by-minute account of the 2-day orientation..."
"Temple['s]...orientation is a one day mystery..."
"We got our orientation schedule...[which ends on] the second day..."
One day orientations? Two day orientations? People, you should feel lucky. All four sections at Loyola of Chicago (three day, one evening) took the same "Fundamentals/Orientation" course, which lasts TWO WEEKS. Talk about torture....
Posted by: greg at August 21, 2003 08:44 PM
